The Reborn Stories
by Whisper5150
Summary: Yes, I've done these before. Yes, I am redoing them. Yes I don't expect them to be read. Honestly the only reason why I am publishing the first one is to see how my followers react now that I actually HAVE followers and to explain to them why I have been so gosh diddly darn slow with my updated chapters. Also if you somehow find this after my reddit post, good job and thank you!
1. Chapter 1

**I'm gonna be honest with yall. I feel like shit for making you all wait so long for the next chapter of Bricriu's chapter. So just to hopefully maybe explain myself, here's something I worked on for myself but am now uploading here for you all to read. So sorry guys, but I promise I am working on the chapter now...**

 **Writing Prompt:**

 **This can be an internal monologue or something spoken:**

 **"They broke the wrong parts of me. They broke my wings and forgot I had claws."**

 **Happy writing!**

The cell was dark, with the only light coming from the small window in the one door made of reinforced wood. The rest of the room was made of cold stone, a single bed in the darkest corner that was stained so much that the lone denizen of the cell couldn't bare to lay on it without being forced to by her captors. Shackles hung from the wall and the bedposts to keep her docile, so dirty with rust that it came off in flakes at the slightest movement, mixing with the dirt and gravel along the ground. They had stopped being used a year ago, no longer needed by now.

In the center of the room, on a small pillow that she had been allowed to keep for good behavior, sat a woman with black hair that flowed down to just past her ears. Despite her terrible living conditions and no clothes to speak of, her entire body was the picture of petite beauty, slightly Canthan in descent. Her lips were soft, her brown eyes showing no sign of the sleep deprivation that hounded her every day and night. When the light was ahead of her, her skin glowed a beautiful white. And her name was Caru Treisio.

She was broken. Completely, utterly, totally. She could not eat without vomiting, could not sleep without waking in a cold sweat and sometimes even screaming, could not think without sinking into a deep pool of murky depression. Two years trapped far away from home, with a hex that made her immobile when commanded to freeze branded into her face, had made her as docile as a frightened lamb, so far gone that she couldn't even feel her mother's warmth anymore.

She had learned her lesson. The monsters in human clothing that held her had made sure the first time she had tried anything that they were not to be toyed with when they held that brand's power over her at all times. Her face underneath her illusion still throbbed with a dull ache after all these months.

She couldn't remember any other day besides that, when they had found her collapsed on the ground, completely drained of power and near death outside of her cell, when her illusion had dropped and they had seen what she truly looked like. They had cursed her name, spat on her, destroyed her, and then when she finally awoke in a daze and had tried to explain, they had gagged her and chained her, and brought out the brand.

But she could still remember the days before, if she chose to. When she had dreamed of coming to Divinity's Reach ever since she was born, learning all she could about the world, and she dreamed of becoming an actor. Someone who everyone would look to and smile and laugh and cry with her as she regaled them with tales and plays that she had seen when she was still very very young. Those memories only brought despair now, and Caru did not wish to call them out before her anymore.

Instead she occupied her mind with thoughts of the bug currently crawling across her hand, watching the centipede as it scrambled in confused circles around her index finger. She envied it, the innocence held. The ignorance of the bigger picture, the lack of fear or sadness. Maybe its brain was just far too small for those emotions to process. It tickled as it made its way down to the back of her hand, little antenna swaying as it crawled around her wrist twice in a loop.

The slow approach of boots did not register in her ear, but the scraping of a key as it slid into the old hole on the other side of the door did. Caru looked slowly over her shoulder as the light filled the room, blinding her to the point where at first all she could see was the silhouette. Her hand with the centipede raised on instinct to cover her face, and the poor bug fell to the ground below. It moved around her bare feet and crawled to squeeze through a crack in the wall that led underground. Again, Caru envied the little creature, and wished she had the power to follow it, to live in its ignorance.

The man standing in the light cleared his throat, and Caru allowed her head to turn back to stare at him, her eyes having adjusted slowly to the light. A smirk was plastered on his face, but it faded as he saw the tail end of the centipede disappear. "Caru what is wrong with you, playing with a tiny insect like that." He visibly shuddered, scratching at his arms beneath his sleeves as he walked in and shut the door behind him. Only then did Caru recognize him, and if she had any care she would have felt a chill down her spine, instead of the nothing she felt now.

Jared had been the one who had seen her first play, when she was still nervous and cautious and innocent. He was the one who paid for her capture at the dirty hands of his goons, and it was his gang who she had been forced to spend the last two years with. Once, he had been a ministry guard, now he worked as one of the most powerful and yet least known bandit in all of Kryta. He pulled the strings of his goons so they always took the blame instead of him.

He managed to get over his momentary lapse of jitters and returned to his smugness. Walking over to her, he helped her to her feet, taking one hand under her arm and the other moving to cup her breast. "You want something to play with in your hand?" He whispers softly in her ear, having to lean his head down to reach due to her short stature. "I can certainly provide that. And we both know it's far bigger than an insect."

Caru only nods obediently, and steps her out of his grasp towards the wall. Placing her well-manicured, lady like hands against the rough stone, she arched her back and sighed at the sound of his belt buckle being undone, followed by his pants hitting the floor.

This must be what Nightmare felt like. This loss and hopelessness, this fear mingling with loss so deep that it consumed all other feeling. How the Court managed to live with this overwhelming dread and despair went far to explain their actions in Tyria. This pain, buried deep within her body, implanted by the cruelty of these monsters, made her feel so very numb to pain and so willing to be alone with nothing but insects for companion.

The ground rumbled as a massive roar broke the silence with such force that the chains on the wall shook. Jared was so startled that he leaped back away from his prisoner, tripping over his discarded clothes and falling right on his exposed backside. "What the hell was that?!" He shouts out, but gets no answer from Caru.

Caru has gone completely stiff in the position she was ordered into, her eyes rolled back into her skull. For her, the roar had been followed by vivid visions. Flashing images of a distant world of green and brown. A jungle, far far away from Divinity's Reach. And within was something calling to her.

She opened her eyes and found the sky directly above her. She was laying in grass, and above her looked very different. The treetops above were hidden behind a ceiling of thick fog of pure white. It reminded her of something she hadn't thought about in years. The Dream. Home. But this place looked nothing like the Grove. It was just an empty clearing, with jungle trees being the only thing ahead of her.

"My poor child." A male voice called to her, and she turned slowly to see a massive sylvari kneeling before her. Even while kneeling, he towered over her, and for the first time in so long she felt that familiar fear crawl up her entire body, locking up her limbs and keeping her from running as this stranger continued on in a soothing tone. "What have these mortals done to you?"

Her fear slowly faded as she registered the massive man's words. In a voice that hadn't been used for anything except begging, she managed to choke out through her fear one word. "What?"

"They force you to be like them, and then they betray you. Abuse you. Destroy you. This is not what I wanted for us." Slowly, his left hand reached out, easily large enough to crush her head in his grasp, and instead rubbed her cheek lightly with his massive thumb. Despite the obscene size, Caru found a soothing warmth and comfort within the hand, and instinctively stepped closer into it.

There was a pause, and then the man continued on in a voice that spoke volumes of wisdom. "They force you to hide your beauty behind this mask. They betray you by never coming to your rescue when you needed them most. They abuse and destroy you when you are your weakest." He brought his hand away and stared into her eyes.

Caru met them and her legs nearly buckled. Those swirling yellow vortexes were powerful, beautiful, and filled with rage that was not capable of a normal sylvari. "Mordremoth will make things right." He continues, bringing his other arm away from his side and holding them both out to her sides, cupping his hands on either side of her and scooping her off the ground. "They broke the wrong parts of you, my sweet child. They broke your wings, and forgot you had claws." As they broke through the fog above, Caru saw the sky was a deep purple, and marveled at its beauty, before the ground slipped out from under her and she found herself falling. A scream tore through her body as she fell, holding her arms out in vain as she hit the dirt below.

When the ground slammed into her body, she found it had returned to cold stone. She had collapsed to the ground during her vision of Mordremoth, and had been twitching there while Jared left to understand what exactly had happened. Having come to once again, Caru heard them talking of a possible mining related explosion nearby as the most probable reason. On shaky legs she stood up, and walked to the door to find it had locked automatically after being closed as it always had.

"They cannot hold my children." Caru heard in a soft whisper, just behind her ear, and without warning a surge of power raced through her body starting at her bare feet. Her eyes rolled back from it, the strength it gave her. Her legs stopped shaking, her hands balled into fists, and her mouth hung open.

She felt something on her sides. Gentle hands that went up and down her body, rubbing in lazy circles as Mordremoth continued to whisper in her ear. "Do not be ashamed. Show them who you Truly are." As he rubbed, Caru could feel her illusion falling away from her midsection, and closed her eyes as she held back her fear.

Her soft pale pink skin was rotten and festered from a lack of sunlight, and covered with dirt. Her legs were peeling in many places, and her feet were bruised and blistered. Her arms fared no better, the end of her fingertips cracked and bleeding, fingers bone thin. Her body, front and back and from head to two, with special attention to her backside, were cuts and bruises like rotten patches on a fruit from where they had whipped and cut her, hidden beneath her illusion.

Her face was last to be revealed, and for everything that made her illusion beautiful, her real face had been ruined by the actions of the humans. Wilting, rotting pieces of bark hung just below her eyes thanks to sleepless nights, her lips were chapped and her cheeks were gaunt. Leaves at the top of her head were dull like dead flowers, hanging and falling from her head. The right side of her face was dominated by a pair of roots that had lost much of their bark from her being slapped, leaving them smooth. On her other cheek was the brand, a simple mark similar to a tear droplet.

The burn of it was more prevalent now that she no longer had it hidden, and she brought a hand up to feel it for the first time since it had been applied, trailing her fingers slowly over its outline, and her eyes welled up with real tears as she recognized what it was.

Mordremoth began humming into her ear as the feeling of his hands reached up her body, gliding over her breasts. A soft tune was being hummed into her ear as he rubbed her cheeks, not deterred at all by her deformities or appearance. She felt safe in his hands, and so she leaned back against the strange feeling of his ethereal body behind her.

"Open your eyes, sweet child." Caru realized her eyes had been closed the whole time, and opened them as commanded.

Her purple eyes, which once were aglow with joy and excitement for a new life in Divinity's Reach, which had dulled with submission and depression, now glowed anew with the new power held within her body.

Footsteps came sounding down the hallway in a quick pace, and Caru looked up at the window of light. She knew what punishment would come if they saw her like this, and fear commanded her to take a step back, into the safe arms of Mordremoth.

Jared turned the corner and stared at her through the wood-framed window, eyes widening with shock before narrowing with rage. Screaming profanities at her, he threw open the door without a second thought and ordered her to freeze.

The brand began to burn her cheek like ice, and she brought her hands up to it, pressing down upon it while screaming in pain. But she did not freeze up. Her limbs did not go stiff and her blood did not go numb. Once again, Mordremoth's docile tone of speaking soothed her to the core as he whispered. "They cannot harm you anymore when I am with you." His fingers slid between hers, holding her gently. "Now let us have our revenge. Together, we shall shatter their world."

Jared stepped forward with an arm raised, hand balled in a fist to strike her down, but as the blow came Caru felt time slow around her. Looking up at his hand, the cause of so much pain and despair, the reason she was down here, kindled the fire within her that had been cold for so long. A gutteral, powerful screech of rage erupted from her mouth as she grasped his hand with both of hers, and flung it ackwards behind him.

He grunted in pain as his knuckles cracked against the stone wall, and moved quickly to tackle her. But she was faster, and she grasped both his wrists with either hand, holding them near his hips against the wall and glaring up at him.

Even like this, pinned against the wall, he towered over her, and he shouted out, "What do you think you're doing Caru? You belong to me! Freeze!" The brand burned once again, with such emphasis that Caru screamed out again, and Jared tried to use the opportunity to throw her off.

He succeeded, tossing her backwards and causing her to fall backwards over her own two feet, but as he reached for his sword and pistol, vines erupted from the wall he had been against, wrapping around his wrists and digging their thorns into his arms. Cursing fluently, he struggles against them. "What is this stuff? Caru! Caru let me go!"

Caru stands and stares as more vines slide out, wrapping up and up his arms and legs, coiling over and over, stabbing into his flesh with thorns as long as her fingers and three times as thick, causing him to scream out in more pain with blood beginning to run from his body in streams. "Help me Caru!" He wails, seeming to forget who he begs to as he babbles for help from the six gods, from his friends somewhere else in the building, from his very own mother.

Caru stared at him in shock. Here was a man who had done nothing but yell and shout and order her around, never showing anything but indifference or anger, and now he was balling like a child. It was so sickening, to think he could be broken so easily. Just like her.

"Not like you, my dear." Mordremoth whispered, and she shook her head to clear it of the shock. "He is weak. You are strong." Jared's eyes met her, and tears were there, flowing freely down his cheeks. Caru nodded her agreement. "Do not give him pity. He does not deserve it. Take his gun." With only slight shaking in her hand, she grasps the grip of his gun.

It burned her hand, and she pulled her hand away quickly. It was Soulbound to him. Useless to her.

"No. Not useless." Mordremoth purred. "Grasp it again." Caru reluctantly reached out once more, and took hold of the handle once more. She could feel Mordremoth's own hand atop hers, curling as her fingers did, squeezing her hand gently and changing it slowly using her own illusion magic.

When she pulled the gun from Jared's holster, she marveled at her new hand. The skin tone, the calluses on her fingers, the scars on her wrists. Every detail, even her fingerprints, matched Jared's own. And as she put her finger on the trigger, there was no burning, no repulsing. She had fooled a soulbind.

Mordremoth's hand left hers, and the illusion faded, yet the gun still did not react to her ruined hands. She looked up and met Jared's eyes again to see he was just as shocked as she was. It made her smile, uncaring of her crooked and missing teeth.

Caru's smile perturbed him farther, and Jared tried in vain to free himself, only able to succeed in cutting himself further on the thorns that held him. Blood filled the cracks in the stone beneath him and he went limp, giving up his struggle and simply whispering hoarsely, broken by coughs and hacking.

She approached him slowly and lifted his chin with the barrel of her gun, staring into his eyes. Tears still streamed down his face, and again Caru felt a small twinge of pity in her still reigniting heart. And again, Mordremoth was quick to soothe her. "He does not deserve pity. He does not deserve remorse. He deserves to die."

Caru nodded her agreement, but brought the pistol down. "Not like this." She whispered hoarsely, then brought the gun to his gut and fired it twice. Both bullets she infused with a powerful illusion of glass, and each one separated from its original path. Instead of going straight into the wall behind him, they twisted downwards, tearing past his intestines and straight between his legs before shattering just as they reached the skin. The pain he feels causes him to scream out, then slump over, unconscious.

Mordremoth was pleased, congratulating her as the vines withdrew from Jared's body and allowed it to fall into the growing pool of blood. "Now let's go. The rest deserve the same." Caru felt her head being turned towards the doorway that still swung open, and nodded her agreement, walking out of the cage that held her for nearly half her life.

Amazingly, no one stood to bar her. No one stopped her from simply walking out, up the cavern slope until she reached the outside. But as she moved one bare, blood covered foot toward the exit, she hesitated at the sound of uproar and laughter farther down into the caverns. Her grip tightened on the pistol, and fresh tears filled her eyes. Turning on a heel, she strode down into the caves with her fury rekindled.

These monsters were no better than Jared. They too had abused her, broken her whenever Jared was not around to use his favorite toy. Sometimes it was for revenge, sometimes just because they felt like it. Not one showed them kindness, not one showed her pity. So she would do the same.

As she walked into the large chamber where many of them stayed, laughing and drinking, many without weapons to speak of, she descended upon them like a demon, blinking behind each one and firing a bullet into each. For the ones she had never seen, the ones who were young or old, who had never decided to take time to torture her, she gave a clean death. To those who she knew well, whose tastes and feeling was burned into her body like a foul disease, she took her time to kill them, slowing time around them to savor it. All through her movements, she felt Mordremoth's presence over her shoulder like a shadow and a vulture, pointing her towards each next kill, helping her to remember the pain and the fear she had endured, and promising she would make it right.

When she walked out of the cave, none of the body's had yet hit the floor, and they collapsed behind her to either bleed out slowly from between their legs, or to leave for the Mists. Caru left them all behind her, gripping the smoking gun tighter in her hands until it caused the bark of her palms to come off in flakes.

As she approached the surface, feeling the breeze for the first time against her body, she sobbed and quickened her pace, scrambling up, up, up the dirt slope until she reached the soundproofed door at the end of her prison and flung it open to the sunshine filled day ahead of her.

It burned her eyes, her hair, her skin. She gasped from the pain and fell to the cobblestone sidewalk of Rurikton, covering her face and body in vain with her arms. The lack of sunlight had left her body ragged to its blinding light.

Passersby stopped and looked at her, gasping at her hideous, nude body. Soon, a incomplete circle began to form around her, and she sobbed and cried as she baked in the sun.

Mordremoth's hands on her shoulder were like ice to the fire that now was building inside her. "You need to get up, my child." He whispered in a hurried tone, unable to do anything but talk to her. "Get up and run. You must run."

"I can't, I can't. It burns, it burns." She cries and sobs to herself, looking to everyone like a madwoman. One man raised his arms and waved them above his head, flagging down a passing patrol of seraph guard and helping them to clear a way through the people.

"Run now, or they will cage you again." He ordered, his soothing tone now giving way to deeper, harsher orders. Caru quaked under him, whimpering and crying from the pain, but did not get up. She only kept weeping, sitting on the warm stone and covering for her head as her body sizzled.

A shirt was thrown over her body so suddenly that she screamed. People backed away in a small scramble as she screamed and screamed until her voice was gone completely, and then she mouthed her screams as she clutched the cloak in her crooked fingers and curled herself under it.

"Ma'am?" A voice said softly, the source moving to crouch in front of her. A guard in his early twenties sat with his knees bent directly in front of him. He was shirtless, and trying his best to force a smile. "We are here to help." He continued, still speaking softly, looking into her eyes with his own.

She kept her gaze up stare at him, at the baby blues of his eyes, his blond hair slightly tostled, and the handsomeness it held. His kindness had saved her from burning in the sunlight. And now another man, a citizen, held out a jug of water, which the young guard accepted with a small smile and held out to her.

"Look deeper, my child." That voice again, in both ears at the same time. Something drew her eyes from the man's face, drawn towards his wrist where there sat two scars. They did not look self inflicted. "Those are from his sister, when she struggled." Mordremoth purred softly. "She struggled so, as he held her to the bed, hands around her neck."

Caru's grip on the pistol tightened as she raised it to the guard. His face paled and he fell back from his crouching stance onto his back, jug of water falling to the ground. Her arm cooked once again in the exposed sunlight, and everybody froze around her. Desperate, he held his arm out towards her and pleaded for her to not shoot.

Caru glared with silent rage, her gaze going back to the man's wrist only to seem them bare and clean. She blinked in confusion, her vision blurred, and suddenly the cuts were there, on both arms. "He's a monster." Mordremoth growled, and Caru felt him point over her covered shoulder towards the guard. She looked, and what she saw made her pull the trigger.

Jared's leering face stared her down where the handsome boy once sat. She screamed out in fear, her finger curled, and the bullet tore through the outstretched hand now holding a middle finger. Jared laughed as he fell back, clutching his hand that now was missing two fingers, his ring and middle.

And then the laughter was overcome by screaming. Screams of fear and panic from the civilians around her, screams of other guards as they heard the gunshot and ran towards their comrade, and the screams of the innocent she had just shot. The poor man held his hand and wailed in fear as he laid on his back, begging her to not shoot him again.

The gun felt heavy in her hand as new tears sprung up. She could hear the guards running towards her. Swords being drawn, guns being loaded, arrows clutched "He's not a monster." She whispered softly, her voice returning slowly as she stares into the void.

"He **IS** a monster Caru!" Mordremoth snarls in her ears, so loud she gets a headache.

Slowly, Caru brings the gun and stares at it as Mordremoth repeats in her ear, in her head, over and over and over. "He's a monster, he's a monster, he's a monster." Her bottom lip trembles and tears roll down her cheeks, but she smiles and shakes her head slowly.

"He's not a monster." She repeats in response, before curling her hand up and placing the cold steel barrel against her burning, rotten chin. Closing her eyes tightly, she hears a resounding shout of "No!" from all around and inside her, the guards managing to grab the cloak off her body just before she shouts out. "I'm a monster!"

The bullet tears through her skull, and she collapses back in the street, hoping to sleep forever in the cool mists.

And waking in a warm, sticky pool of yellow, hanging above a world of green and brown far far away from Divinity's Reach, with deep chuckles rumbling in her head.

 **Author's note: This is a story of one of the voices in my head. The woman who considers Kaltain, Feyre, Harley Quinn, Corporal Betsy, and just about every other victim she has ever spoken to her brothers and sisters in arms. The one who thinks of Mor as her true love, who believes herself firmly to be a dreamer. Who marches happily with LGBT, cheers for the couples, and who is seductive till the end to hide her pain.**

 **Whoever you are, she hopes you enjoyed her story. And now I can't wait to re-visit all my character's backstories to see what all I can improve for them.**


	2. Chapter 2

··············· **A tribute of the biggest scumbag in my head.**

Saint hated the jungle, with a passion no God could ever hope to measure. The humidity, the bugs, the foliage, the damn hylek, all of them could just screw off for all he cared. Every second he spent stuck here, miserable and distraught, he would be sure to make Gixx pay for with a very strongly worded letter or a very vulgar talking-to. Whichever he could get to first, though the second option was far, FAR more tempting.

Sitting in his tent, on a cot he layed out for him and him alone, Saint groaned and stretched out, setting down the book he had taken with him for this Gods-Forsaken journey and allowing his fingers to wiggle, to regain their sensation, spread out towards the tent's sunbathed canvas ceiling.

Mosquitoes and other insects stand trapped in the cloth mesh just below the canvas, and Saint made sure his fingertips did not graze the cloth, shuddering slightly at the thought of the little demons getting inside before checking his gloves and boots for any of the damn things and slipping them on. The bugs of the Maguuma carried so many diseases and poisons, he was glad Sylvari were largely immune to being bit or stung.

The naturally dyed replica green and orange Firstborn armor did little to comfort him, however strapping his golden sword and dagger to his back certainly did, the familiar weight forcing him to stand a little straighter. He smiled briefly, running a hand through his softly glowing yellow and green hair and then straining his neck in a lazy circle, cracking it gently.

A collective roar of laughter outside his tent made him groan loudly. Everyone else was already up, and most likely mocking him for sleeping past sunrise. On his hands and knees, Saint crawled carefully out of the tent, pushing the flaps open with his hand and then moving out onto the grass carefully, making sure his feet don't get caught on the damn thing.

His assumption proved true; the others on this expedition were already awake, sitting around in chairs or on the leaf and grass ground, leaning back and relaxing as if all the insects weren't driving them crazy as well. Bunch of bastards. Still, Saint kept his mouth shut as he approached them and offered only a nod in good morning before sitting down in the grass.

Tink, resident asura and drunkard, as well as the Vigil muscle attached to this Priory mission, did what he did best as he sat in the circle of his companions; held a tankard of ale aloft and then drank deeply, laughing at a joke one of the others had said, his drink spilled down across his dark colored jungle armor. The ale joined the other messy stains across his powerful chest and shoulders from the dinner of Smokescale they had yesterday that he had captured and cooked, no doubt soaking onto his light coffee colored skin.

His small clawed hand went to Silvia's furred side, who must have been the one who made the joke with how she was beaming with pride. The blonde furred Charr's tail tried in vain to keep from wiggling to and fro behind her across the ground, getting covered in even more dirt and muck that she has yet to clean off her body or her blue priory armor. It didn't stop his hand from gliding across her shoulder back and forth, petting her fur, wedding band glinting in the sunlight. She continued to beam with her razor sharp teeth, even as the two norn twins snickered at her and the asura.

Eric and William, both norn and both insufferable, distracted themselves from the charr and asuran's "friendship" to instead tinker with each other's gear. The competition they had come up with since childhood still fueled every moment of their dark chocolate skinned existence, each working to make their sibling the better toys to play with having made them avid inventors and improvers. Even Saint could not complain about the natural padding they had made for his plant clothes to alleviate the rubbing irritations the leaves created. But he could complain about their noisiness. And their horrible sense of fashion. Who comes to a jungle wearing furs and shoulder length black hair?

Erik pointed with a screwdriver towards the other tent made of leaves and bark, planted close and yet not too close to Saint's own. "She's still not awake yet? She slept like a log last night." He scratched at his recently shaved chin with thought, then a small smile tugged at his lips. "Someone should wake her." His fingers drifted to his lips, index finger crooked to meet his thumb before he stuck them in his mouth, not caring about the dirty and grime on them.

William nodded his head in agreement, his hands raising in sync with his sibling, cupping around his large mouth. Only Saint knew what was coming and reacted with enough speed to clasp his hands over his ears before William let out a loud bellow the same time Eric blew a piercing whistle. The others followed his example, but the damage to their ears had already been done, and they shouted in pain, along with a string of curses at the now hysterically laughing brothers.

The tent's outer walls bulged and threatened to break as the denizen within scrambled around, having just woken up to the such ear splitting sounds their mind was racing. Saint listened to the sound of leather being unfolded and thrown on, then the sound of a greatsword being drawn out of its long sheath, and then the entrance flap flew open, and the green sylvari female within sprung out, holding the greatsword ready for combat. Her pigtails wrapped around each other, her shirt having only two buttons on, and her legs completely bare.

Her eyes wide and fearful, like a doe staring at a charging beast, Vilstress scanned the area for threats as everyone but Saint and Silvia roared with laughter. Slowly processing she had been tricked, her eyes calm a little, only to widen once more as she looked down and beheld her naked form in full view. She squeaked out an embarrassed noise and covered herself best she could with her hands, her greatsword falling to the ground beside her, smashing against a root with a loud clang.

Saint stood quickly from his cross legged position and moved to help her, scooping up the hilt of the greatsword and holding it out to her. She shook her head while a yellow glow covered her cheeks, and mouthed the word "pants". Saint nodded and laid the sword back down in a safer spot away from them both, then opened the flap to her tent.

Her sylvan hound Ranfern sat ready for him, relaxed as it held her pants in its maw. A small, phantom smile tugged at his lips, but he did not let it form as he nodded his gratitude to the beast and took the pants from him, fixing them from the inside out form they were in before handing them to Vilstress, who moved to put them on as fast as possible.

Her clumsy feet stomped on the pant's left leg as she tugged upwards, and a scream tore past her lips as she fell forward right into Saint's chest. His hands braced against her shoulders, and Eric whistled again, this time in a seductive call, while William and Tink once again burst into hysterics. Silvia growled, but they did not seem to care at all for her opinion, despite her seniority and soberness.

Her fall had her backside presented straight at the group. Saint glared destruction towards them all, and William had the audacity to flash him a thumbs up of 'encouragement.'

Vilstress didn't even notice her compromising position. She just carefully moved to stand once again, her head barely reaching up to his chin as she looked up at him with a glimmer in her blue eyes. A glimmer of thanks, sure, but also one of adoration. Of respect. Of something more.

Saint paled a little. How many times had he looked at her with that gaze, before she was taken? How many times had he held her just like he held Vilstress now, arms on her shoulders, staring down into her eyes? Snarling at himself, he wrenched his hands away from her, and turned away quickly, unable to stomach her touch anymore.

Vilstress's eyes followed his back as he stepped to her greatsword and scooped it up once more into his hands, then held it for her. She moved to take it, her little hands making sure not to touch his own, but he stopped her with a gruff order. "Pull up your pants."

Her eyes darted to his own, and he steeled himself to be cold and unfeeling in the face of her anger or anguish, no matter how much it pained him or her. But she didn't retaliate or shed a tear. She meekly nodded her head and reached down, tugging her leather clothes up and tying them to her waist before taking her greatsword back from him and dragging it slowly along the ground to the circle, uncaring as it bangs and clatters against roots and rocks.

Ranfern steps out of the tent and bumps into Saint's legs, growling at the green sylvari as he walked past. Saint didn't bother with flinching as he followed the hound, sitting back in his spot across from Vilstress, who kept her head bowed towards the greatsword in her lap, staring into the reflection it cast within as if it held something she deeply desired.

"Hell of a show there, Villy." Tink slurred, his ale now run dry. Silvia winced at his words, but Eric and William snickered, and Vilstress gave him no response, as if she hadn't heard. Rolling over lazily, he reached behind himself with a grasping hand, searching for something behind him. "Saint... here. I finished your little book." He finally grabbed his target, and held it up triumphantly before tossing it across the ring to Saint.

Saint stared in shock at the sad, tattered mess of a book that he now held in his hands. Crumbs and scraps filled its pages, and stains covered every page. "What in the six gods did you do!?" He roared, gesturing desperately to his work, at the horrid conditions that now plagued it.

Tink rolls his massive, bulging, hideous eyes. "I spilled some coffee this morning. Calm down. It's fine." He tossed his tankard away into the jungle, slamming it into a tree that splintered the container down the center, ruining it.

"Calm down!?" Saint sputtered. "This was a direct translation from a high priest of Abaddon's diary that nearly crumbled to dust when I found it! I stayed in a cave for fourteen hours to make sure not a single word was lost! I made this to give to the Priory's library before we set foot on this Gods blasted expedition, and you do THIS to it!? Gixx will never accept this!"

"Gixx doesn't own me, now does he?" Tink grinned at him with a smugness that screamed challenge. Saint stood to do just that, but Silvia raised a hand and met his gaze, promising fury if he tried. She gave the same look to Tink, who only blew her a kiss that made her growl from deep within her chest.

Never ones to pass up time for shenanigans, Eric wrapped his arm around Saint's neck after the sylvari sat down, the muscle behind it pressing against his collar. He tried not to cringe at the norn's terrible odor as he opened his mouth. "Saint's right Tink. That book was priceless to the priory and you do that? Not cool."

William immediately leaned forward, staring at Tink with a hard expression, hiding his sarcasm so expertly behind a mask of barely contained annoyance blended seamlessly with rage. "Really? It's damn coffee. On a book. Books are stronger than that, they're not going to melt away from a little bit of liquid."

Saint sighed and looked down, taking Eric's wrist carefully in his hands, fingers grasping the massive man's skin as best he could and moving the arm over his head. "That's enough you two. Le-"

 _Whack!_

His train of thought is derailed completely as a rock hits him right in the forehead. His hand flies up to nurse the wound as he looks to Tink, and finds the little asuran standing upright, both hands raised in a fighting position. He leaps into the air a few times, waving his fists, stumbling and swaying with each landing as his world spins from alcohol.

"Bring it on, you damn salad!" Tink shouts angrily, before taking a stumbling step forward. William scoots back, moving out of his way, doing little now to hide his grin as attention is no longer on him, his twin a mirror image. "By the Alchemy, I will pound you into the dirt so hard the Sylvari will have another Mother!" He raced forward to attack, and Saint put a hand on the pommel of his golden sword, ready to draw it and defend himself.

Silvia grabbed the little asuran by the collar and hoisted him up. Kicking and cursing, Tink's hands went to his collar as he felt his airflow be cut off, and met his captor in her eyes as she glowered, then tsked him. "Tink, get ahold of yourself. What would your brother Tinker think about your actions?" Her words sounded deceptively kind, almost motherly, but there was none of the affection a mother would give a child in her eyes.

The asuran coughed and managed to choke out a retort. "Probably... spend more time worrying about his damn yaks." Silvia glared into his eyes as they rolled back, sighed and dropped him, letting him hit the ground with a soft oof. He turned and glared angrily at Saint, who returned it along with a small smirk. "Bookwhore." He spat, then tried to actually spit on Saint, but the glob of saliva barely made it a few inches. Finally, he chose to stand up and walk away, storming to his tent before any more fury could descend upon him.

Saint continued to smirk at the floppy eared cretin's back, but found Silvia stepping in his way, now pointing her eyes of anger towards him. Quickly, he averted his gaze elsewhere, first to Eric and William giving each other a quick knuckle pound, then to Vilstress and her wolf. His eyes froze on her face.

Fury brewed within her baby blue eyes, completely unchecked, though no one but him seemed to notice. Her hands had a death grip, knuckles white against the hilt of her greatsword. Her arms nearly shook from the exertion. All the while her eyes were locked behind Silvia, towards the asuran who had just ducked into his tent.

Ranfern reached over, nosing her shoulder gently, and then nosed towards Saint, who barely noticed the hound's movements and only sat in shock at the raw emotion Vilstress held in her eyes. Her gaze drifted to him, and the spark of rage was smothered completely, replaced by the return of the soft glow on her cheeks that signified her blush. Quickly, she looked back down at her greatsword, and the reflection within, slumping her body over as if to make herself appear smaller.

Saint would have continued to stare, had it not been for Silvia's voice rising up. "Mark down where we set up camp. I finally wanna follow the readings."

Everyone's eyes went as wide as dinner plates, and even Tink poked his head back out, to look at the group in slight confusion. "Did I hear that right?"

"Yes you did, drunkard." Saint shouts, and Silvia wheels around to point at him, her voice harsh and commanding complete compliance.

"Not. One. More. Word." She says with a steel in her tone, and Saint gulps before nodding his head, gesturing with a hand for her to continue. She looks at Vilstress, who looks up from her greatsword to meet her gaze, both of their eyes now without that strange fire that had just been burning within. "We are going to follow Eric's and Will's readings and document what we find, then come straight back and pack up. We've explored every damn inch of this jungle, and I wanna go home and see my cubs. Any questions?"

No one raises their hand, and she nods, quickly finishing her orders."Great. Let's get going." Everyone stood at attention quickly and nodded their heads, going back to their tents.

Saint ran over and bent over, reaching past the entrance flap, grabbing his jungle journal and a pen in one hand, ready to write down everything the group finds down to the strangest patch of dirt.

Vilstress walks over to her own tent beside his to get the sheath to her greatsword, bending over into her tent and grabbing it carefully with both hands, her face bracing her body against the leafy exterior walls. Surprisingly, the green leaves hold her weight, and she wraps tthemassive scabbard around her back before clipping it and putting her greatsword within.

She turns to see Saint staring at her feet, and tilts her head slightly like a dog. "What?"

Saint blinks himself out of his daydreaming and made contact with her eyes with his gaze, then quickly turned away. Vilstress frowned softly and turned as well, looking back towards Eric and William trading off what looked to be special mines they made for each other, complete with detonators of their favorite colors. They hugged each other and laughed about who would blow up the bigger beast.

"This'll be the end of my first mission out of the Priory." Vilstress mutters, barely perceived by Saint's ears. He turns his gaze back to her, but she keeps her gaze forward at a downward angle, as if talking to the grass. "I hope I did well enough to get another, and not be stuck in the library again."

Saint opened his mouth to educate her on how wonderful the library could be, with its texts spanning throughout eons and stories of other worlds, when she continues, turning and looking him in the eyes with a twinkle in her blue iris. "Maybe, when we get back, we can find an adventure to go on." She pauses, biting her lip, a hand reaching across her chest to grasp the opposite arm just below the shoulder, her gaze dropping to the ground once more. the perfect portrait of bashfulness. "An adventure with just you and me?"

A stabbing pain ripped through his heart, as if someone had shoved a blade through his spine and out past his ribcage. His blood became a roar in his ears, his breathing growing difficult. He forced his lips to part, to give her the answer he believed that she needed to hear.

"No."

He met her eyes as they turned back to his face, the tears that formed there sparkling in the sunlight peeking through the trees, and found his voice locked in his throat before he could explain himself. The only sound between them was the rustling of leaves above and the voices of the others getting ready to head out. But Saint's ears continued to pound, sounding like the roar of a dragon champion.

Vilstress closed her eyes and nodded her head, lip quivering as she contained her pain as best she could, then turned and walked towards their companions quickly, holding her sides in a self hug for comfort. Saint managed to take in a breath finally, sucking in air through his mouth, trying to calm his body. His blood had gone from roaring to cold as ice, and he groaned as he put a hand to his heart, to assure himself he still had one.

The others looked to Vilstress as she walked past them all towards their destination, Ranfern standing and padding to her side to nuzzle against her hand, then turned to Saint as he managed to take in one final, deep breath before finally calming his raging emotions.

Silvia and the twins tried to look sympathetic. They knew what kept him back, what now forced him to reject her attempts. She should know too, but something made Saint understand that she didn't know.

Tink chose instead to laugh at him and nearly made a comment that would have surely started another fight, but Eric stepped up and slammed a massive hand against the Asuran's head so hard the drunk fell forward into a thick patch of grass, his small body disappearing between the blades. Saint nodded his thanks, and William returned the gesture with his own nod.

Saint took another breath, then walked over to join them. Silvia pointed towards Vilstress. "Let's move out people." She ordered, and everyone began walking, with Tink climbing out of the grass and stumbling to the front just behind Vilstress, as much distance from the others as he could get, nursing a new lump on his skull.

Saint allowed himself to smile.

They arrived on a massive open land of rock and moss, and marveled at the sight before them. A tree trunk as large as the one in the Tangled Depths stood before them, towering high into the sky, piercing the clouds with its bark. Holes scattered throughout it, showing nothing but inky blackness of deep cavern systems where Chak and other creatures skittered and scrambled in and out.

Saint's pen had long paused above his journal, being the last to see the monument to Melandru before him, but he was first to snap out of his stupor, scribbling down everything as quickly as he could. "Quick, Quick!" He shouts to the others, bringing them awake as well to look at him. "Gather samples, data, everything! This discovery is incredible! A massive hive on the south western side of the Maguuma." He writes the date, the year 1326 AE, and then wrote vaguely where their coordinates lie, waiting for the others.

Eric and William opened the packs they brought with them and plunged spears of machinery into the ground, plugging in cords and wiring, looking at the readings that lit up on their screens with delight. "Ley energy!" Eric shouts, his eyes aglow with the screens brightness as he turns to Silvia, then to Saint and reads off the readings, which Saint writes quickly. "Flowing through here like the currents of a massive ocean!"

"All of it is going into that tree!" William adds, pointing to the chak hive before them. Saint nodded, and added the detail quickly. "That's why the hive is so massive. This place must be heaven on earth to them!" The brothers high five each other and cheer.

Saint can't help but grin at their joy, and Silvia joins in their cheer. Still smiling, Saint looks to Vilstress and finds her staring to the ground. Only then did Saint recognize the gentle ebb and flow beneath their feet, and shouted in alarm. "Do you all feel that?!"

The others looked down quickly, expecting the worst, ready to run at the first sight of trouble, but nothing happened. "This place must have so much ley energy stored up that it's affecting the earth." Silvia mutters, her paws leaving her rifle stock.

Eric and William look to each other, then at their screens, working swiftly with their massive fingers on the small asuran technology. "If that's true, then this place is a massive battery!" Eric cries out, then reaches down to pat the ground. "It must have been feeding the chak for generations pure, free magic."

"We need to harness this, to show the Priory." William is panicked now as he gestures Saint over. Quickly the sylvari does so, and notes down every detail he can read. "If a dragon were to manage to get here, the results could be disastrous. There's enough magic here for a worldwide cataclysmic event."

"English please?!" Tink growled, even though Saint was sure he had understood. Tink was a drunk idiot, but even he still had an asuran's dictionary level intellect. Vilstress however looked very confused and afraid as she looks over Eric's free shoulder to see his screen with Saint.

"Translation, we need to go. Now." Silvia barks. "Back it up. We gotta go get this data back to the Pact. They'll know what to do with it." Everyone nods, and Saint pockets his journal and pen, glancing one last time at the green glowing hive on the edge of the world.

"Wait!" Eric shouts, stopping William from unplugging Eric's data reader. "Something's coming! A massive spike of energy, heading right this way!" William leaned over his sibling's free side as the screen glowed green.

"INCOMING!" Silvia roared, and everyone turned towards her, and the sight of a massive glowing iridescent light rushing through the jungle like a crack down the earth, heading straight towards them. "GET DOWN!" She leapt to the ground away from the group, out of the light's path, and the others followed suit.

Tink grabbed Vilstress' hand and threw her to the ground west, covering her with his and Ranfern's bodies as best they could. William and Eric both ducked down and held their heads tucked to their chests as they dove towards the hive.

Saint stood and stared at the light as it moved between the trees, coursing through the ground like a living bolt of lightning, his gold eyes glowing with the rainbow of energy he beheld as it approached.

It seemed to pause before the wide open landscape that his group stood in, hesitant to leave the jungle, before it plunged forward and beelined towards them. Towards him.

His boots feeling as though the leaves turned to stone, Saint barely managed to move to the side, stepping just to right of the glow of teal, watching the shimmering line rush past him on a mad dash, striking like a viper past Vilstress and Tink, then splitting into two paths as it rushes around William and Eric, as though it knew the norn twins were there, yet didn't see him.

More cracks across the stones erupted around them all, the pillars of light converging on the massive tree and the hive within. Chak screamed from within, and many leapt from the many holes in the hives, plummeting to the ground below or gliding on wings that glistened in the sunlight.

The cracks climbed the tree, wrapping around it over and over, each seeming to glow a different colors. Red offshoots erupted from the cracks like thorns of a briar plant, spreading to each other in a wide circle. The tree's bark creaked and groaned, chak continuing to evacuate, as the bark screamed out, and half the tree was suddenly cut from the top with a massive flash of light.

The top blew in the wind back and forth, as if pushed and pulled by a phantom wind, then plummeted down towards the ocean beyond, leaves falling into the wind and swirling away as it splashed into the sea and sank without another sound below the waves, out of sight.

Silvia stood slowly behind him. He could hear the sounds of her claws against the dirt as she beheld the destruction. "Is it over?" She asked softly, and Saint nodded slowly, bringing his eyes down from the now missing and splintered treetop to look at her.

"Yes. I think so." His eyes wandered away from her and to the wall of light that separated them from the others. Each seemed completely trapped by a circle of color, stuck. Slowly, Saint reached out, ready for intense pain to erupt down his arm. Silvia calls for him to stop, but he pushes his hand past the light anyways.

Nothing but a slight tingling along his forearm. He sighs in relief and turns to her. "It's okay. It's safe." She gawks at him as he puts his other hand through and smirks. "Actually, it tickles a little, but yeah. No pain."

"Where did it come from?" She chokes out, then clears her throat and steps forward as she regains her confidence, placing a paw through the light. Her hair stands straight from the contact, like a static charge holds it up, and she smiles, then giggles. Beyond the rings of apparent ticklishness, Tink and Ranfern have gotten off Vilstress, who sits up and stares at everything that had happened whilst she was protected. William and Eric stand up on wobbly legs, supporting each other as they stared at the energy.

"It's the ley energy!" Eric calls out, sticking his own hand in it. "Completely pure, pushed up to the surface!" William does the same as his twin, each trying to grab at the light as if they could pull it free and harness it in its raw state. As if it wasn't the most free thing in all of Tyria.

"Is the floor going to fall apart?!" Vilstress screams out, and it seemed almost everyone realized at the same time what their findings had said before. That they were floating above a large pool of energy. That with these cracks slowly releasing their energy, the floor could collapse at any time. Everyone pulled their hands away from the cracks and look towards the exit. The tree line beyond the mossy rocks.

"Everyone off the rock! Back into the jungle!" Tink shouts, climbing to his feet quickly and scrambling towards the light blocking him from his retreat northward. His boots tear apart the moss behind him, leaving Vilstress to climb up and run after him with Ranfern.

He approached the first crack, only for the pillars to suddenly become complete walls, blocking his escape with a shimmering rainbow window. His feet skidded to a stop, then ran forward without hesitation. Whether driven by alcohol or adrenaline, the asuran did not stop.

He raised his hand and swung with a might roar for his size. His hand made contact with the wall and there was a flash of light. He screamed during the flash, and Saint thought maybe he lost his sight, but when the shine faded Saint stomach turned as he saw what else was gone.

Tink's hand was seared clean off, leaving only a smoking stump of flesh, just beneath the wrist.

The wall appeared between them all where the pillars had been, so Saint was unable to do anything but watch as Vilstress catches the asuran from falling backwards, kneeling so she doesn't drop him, then screaming at the sight of his missing hand, her eyes widening.

Tink's body shook and spasmed, his left hand gripping his right wrist as his eyes opened and closed as if he were blinking. The pain and shock had sent him into a seizure, and Vilstress cried softly as she held him, trying to keep him off the ground and from hurting himself, scared out of her wits.

"Burn me!" Silvia snarled, looking around desperately. "Stay put! All of you stay put!" Saint nodded, and steps away from the cracks with his hands up. William and Eric do the same, their hands raised and shaking as they all stare at the windows of light now keeping them apart.

She swallowed, composing herself as quickly as she could, then called out to Vilstress. "Vilstress, keep him stable as best you can! We will stay put until the ley energy fades, and then race for the jungle. No fucking around!" Vilstress and Ranfern pull Tink's writhing body away from the wall of light and she gave a quick nod to signal she understood.

Crumbling rock echoed around them, and everyone went still, looking around slowly, hands drifting to the grips on their weapons. The earth shook once, then went still for a brief moment, giving a false sense of security before the ground around them fell away.

Screams flew as the rocks below their feet plummeted briefly through the air, floating away from the rock before the ground stopped without warning, each at the same height.

They hit the restabled ground hard. William bellowed with agony as his spine broke against the earth along with his staff, and Eric suffered a blow to the head that left him unconscious immediately. Saint and Silvia managed to barely catch themselves on all fours without too much injury, and Vilstress clutched Tink as she hits the earth, Ranfern letting out a pained howl somewhere beyond the light.

Recovering from the fall, his legs and arms weak, Saint could do little but stare on his hands and knees as each of their new stone islands slowly drifted apart, the walls of light fading away and replaced by glowing blue bridges of energy, swirling and bouncing like waves of the sea beyond the broken tree.

Low rumbling rises from below the group, the only warning of something large lurking below before an ear splitting roar erupts beyond the blue mist under their rock isles, so loud it echoes in Saint's mind, causing a splitting headache. His hands immediately move to his ears, covering them completely, but the damage is done.

Crying out weakly in pain, Saint's eyes close tight as he feels his mind slip away and his body collapsed to the stone, his eyes glazed as they reopened, barely able to see more than a slowly dimming, fuzzy outline of the world. The last thing he saw was Vilstress slumping over Tink's still thrashing body, into the same dream that now claimed him.

Saint awoke at home, upon familiar earth. His mind was a haze as he surveyed the land, but his instincts were strong, and his hand flew out above his head to grasp his sword hilt, bringing out the golden blade for the comfort holding it brought as he scanned his surroundings with an eye out for any threat.

Purple mist blanketed the outer walls of the Grove's top floor, blotting out the sky and leaving the ground a shade darker. No sign of another sylvari, or any living creature, in all directions, the strange purple fog falling from above to blanket the earth. The wind carried the scent of nature, of fresh and fertile soil mixed with a entourage of flower's scents, so at least that hadn't change from the years had been gone.

But there was no sound. He could only hear his own breathing, and his heart pounding in his chest. Fear drove it like a centaur's slave under the whip.

"So this is how she chooses to use my power." A deep voice, sounding like stones falling down a mountain in the Shiverpeaks, echoed around him from somewhere within the mist.

Saint went still, his wrist lifting the tip of his sword raising in preparation for combat. He would defend himself, his home. "Made a wonderful home for herself, for our children." There was no emotion behind the words, and yet the voice tsked softly as his wording hinted towards disappointment. "Sad. There is potential for so much more with what I gave her."

Saint turned towards the entrance of the Grove, looking for the source through the mist, only to hear the sound of soft footsteps behind him. Wheeling around on his heels, he raised his sword to deflect a blow, and his legs nearly buckled at the sight before him.

A sylvari male, muscular and powerful, towered before him, easily reaching the height of Mother's chamber hanging somewhere above in the mist. Though he is massive, his footsteps are near silent across the grass as he approached the now thoroughly terrified green-clad sylvari before him. "It is good to see you, my son. I feared I had only a single daughter." The giant's mouth curled into a wide smile, flashing perfect white teeth hidden behind lips of bark.

"Who are you?" Saint whispered, his voice little more than a squeak as he forces it past his fear, his sheer terror as he stared at the monster before him. Something in his instincts kept Saint's eyes on the monstrosity's lips as he spoke, away from its eyes.

"Who am I?" The figure repeated, then brings a hand up to examine it, as if this is the first time seeing his own body. His smile does not fade as he returns his eyes to Saint's. The instinct was eaten away by that smile, and his eyes darted up for a brief moment to look at the giant's full face.

Saint's breath caught in his throat and grew ragged as he stared deep into the pits that made up the giant's eyes, the swirling abyss of knowledge and power in the orange depths promising something otherworldly. His sword's blade dipping slightly towards the soil, his grip loosened on the hilt and he allowed it to tumble to the dirt, lodged in the soil.

After what seems like eternity getting lost in the male's eyes, the giant answered the question finally. "I am your father, sweet child. I am here to show you your destiny. Your holy mission."

Saint blinked, and found the the giant had disappeared in the span it took for his lids to reopen. Heart sinking, he wheeled around again as the mist begins to roll in closer, smothering him and completely blocking out his vision. He cried out and grasped for where the hilt of his sword should have been, only to find empty air.

He wasted no time, quickly grabbing his dagger's leather wrapped hilt and drawing it upwards instead, ready to run at the first sign of danger, to fight for his life. Despite the mist that seemed to get through his ears and into his mind, he still remembered the path out of the Grove. He knew he could make it out.

That mist was so thick across the ground Saint didn't realize he was being lifted into the sky by a massive hand until the mist was suddenly breached, the sunlight blinding him for a moment. He screamed in fear and stepped back, but the now massive giant reached out with his other hand and caught him before he could fall too far.

"Breathe, my son." The giant whispered. "Let Mordremoth make things right." The palm of the giant's hand glowed and seemed to open up into a pool of light that swirled with colors, Saint scrambling up the giant's wrist to stay away from it as the light within began to structure itself. Shapes took form over time, faces and images appearing and then being swept away as if the light had a current not at all unlike the Unending Ocean.

He recognized some of the images, but not all. Images that were burned into his mind, faces that spoke to him of pain or of happiness, those he saw and gasped at. The face of the Pale Tree, of his Mentor, of his teacher within the Priory.

But many many more that were nothing to him. He knew he met them before, for this must have been a screen into his memory if there were faces he knew, but could not remember their names or where they had met, despite the glimpses of backgrounds. Snow or soil, no matter their race, he could not remember them after they vanished into the swirl. Until one face appeared.

Saint paled at the face that appeared in a background of pink and purple, his legs buckling at the detail in her brown skin, her deep blue eyes staring through the window to him. A small smile formed across her lips as she saw him, met his eyes, her hand going to her chest, as if she could see through that window of light, of memory, to see him.

"Sieran." Saint breathed, his hand reaching towards the pool. Longing like he had never felt consumed him. Something about seeing her again, in such vivid detail as if she was still here, just on the other side of this window of liquid light, made his mind go numb.

His heart felt heavy in his chest as he touched the light pool, energy spiking through his gloves and past his skin, tingling through his fingers. The feeling crawled up his arm at a shocking speed, and he screamed out of fear, yanking his hand back as quickly as possible.

As if completely unaware of Saint's plight coursing through his veins, Mordremoth murmured softly, staring past him to the center of his palm. "Such a beautiful woman. And yet this was her fate." The pool swirled around in lazy circles until the black and brown of a stone floor took form, followed by the forming of a body laying on the concrete, face down, shadows of her killers, the risen, hovering over her.

"Disgusting." Mordremoth rumbled as Saint tore off his glove and stared at his glowing yellow left hand, throbbing and humming within his bones with power. "I hope Zhaitan paid dearly for this insult to my legacy." Saint wiggled his fingers one by one, able to see through each of them as if they were the digits of an Ascalonian ghost.

"Who did this to us?" Mordremoth hissed slowly, and Saint finally looked at the pool. As he stared, eyes beginning to well up with tears that he thought had already been shed enough for his lost love, the image seemed to zoom out slowly, revealing the Risen beginning to overwhelm the last of the Lionguard on Claw Island.

Saint couldn't think well enough through the mist in his mind to question how such a vivid image could appear in this pool of memories, when he had never gotten a chance to see her body. He wasn't send to the island. If he had been, he would have died by her side without a shadow of doubt. Their final adventure.

Saint pointed with his normal hand, careful of the dagger still held within it. "Those... things." A finger towards a risen charr, then a risen asuran, both seeming to calm down from their frenzy. "They did this. They took her."

Mordremoth growled low, deep within his chest, so loud that it echoed against the ground somewhere below. "Look further beyond, child. Look to those who claim no guilt." And so Saint stared into the pool, watching as the risen changed slowly, their flesh becoming whole, their bodies becoming rejuvenated.

Asurans, Norn, Charr, and Humans, fully healed, gathered around his beloved, their hands still in fists. And then the blows began to fall.

Again and again, they took turns kicking and beating Sieran's body, denting her armor and bruising her flesh. Saint stared in disbelief, then lunged forward, plunging his glowing hand into the pool, grasping towards her as if he could somehow grab her body, pull her away from this abuse.

" _SIERAN!"_ He howled with rage, throwing his arm around, disrupting the surface of the light pool as best he can, breaking it away until it formed something new. Gixx, standing before him holding a paper Saint had written for him. He stopped his motions and stared at the asuran, as if he were back in the Steward's office sitting at his desk, even though his arm was still plunged into the light, distorting the image just above Gixx's left shoulder.

"Look to those who claim no guilt to see who is to blame."

"I can't allow you to retire right now, Saint." Gixx mumbled, looking up from the paper to meet Saint's eyes through the shimmer. "Nor can I approve your request for Sieran's body. We still have not recovered it ourselves."

Saint heard his own voice, younger but still clearly his, echo his response to Gixx. "Steward, please!"

Gixx's eyes narrowed. "Though I assure you her body will not be pretty when we recover it, I will notify you so you may mourn. I promise. But there is nothing we can do right now, and you are needed in the library."

He put the paper down on his desk and sighed, rubbing his eyes with his left hand, his body rippling from Saint's disruption of his own memory. Or maybe it was just the tears in the sylvari's eyes. "I apologize for what you lost. I can only imagine how much this pains you, considering how much it pains me, but there is nothing I can do."

Saint's hands ball into fists, just like they did the day all this occured. "Stop it." He murmured to Mordremoth, to Gixx, but the pool did not fade.

Gixx did not stop talking. "I suggest focusing on your work for now. It will be difficult, but the pain will fade. I promise."

"Stop it!" Saint said louder, his voice cracking as he tore his gaze away from the pool. Still, Gixx stayed put and kept talking. He didn't bother trying to cover his ears; Saint knew it would be useless to drown out the words he already knew were coming.

"Honor her legacy. She would have wanted us to." Gixx looked away, towards something off to his left that called his attention. Saint just found his memory's vision floating down to his lap, towards the journal he held there, open to show the flowery penmanship within.

Mordremoth's rage-filled growl rose from deep within his chest and consumed Saint's thoughts as the giant spoke. "What did he know of Sieran's wants?" The pool faded away, the light dying in both it and Saint's arm as he pulled himself back, sitting down with his knees curled close to his chest, shaking with a burning fire. "Hm?"

Saint thought of the journal. The words within. "Nothing."

"Nothing." Mordremoth echoed, his massive head nodding slowly. "It was he who forced her to go to Claw Island. It was the Priory's ideals of duty, of adventure, that sealed her fate." Saint didn't think to question how the giant knew what was within the journal. He only nodded his agreement.

Mordremoth went quiet for a moment, then kneeled down, bringing Saint down to the floor slowly, his fingers curling to give the smaller sylvari something to hold on to before placing him down on the ground. "I never wanted this fate." He murmured as Saint climbed off his hand. "For you, for Sieran, for anyone."

"The world I envisioned was beautiful." Saint turned to look up at him, and found those deep orange eyes staring down at him, enrapturing him once more. They looked like balls of amber, and Saint found his emotions, his fears and joys, slipping away the longer he stared. "A heaven on Tyria, for all my children." The orange seemed to glow from deep within, color climbing up as if from a deep pit hidden behind his irises. Something that had been long dormant, something that was held, waiting, for him alone.

Registering Mordremoth waving his hand somewhere off to the left, Saint turns and gapes at the large number of Sylvari who stood before him, chatting and singing and enjoying themselves in the shade of Mother's leaves above. "We were to be the only ones upon this world. A race of beauty, of nature, of peace."

Saint's eyes scanned the crowds of sylvari that he could see within the thick purple mist, searching for a face he recognized. "Yet my garden is infested with parasites." Mordremoth rumbled. "And I am in need of an exterminator. To cleanse the sin, so that our people might thrive."

Saint knew, exactly what Mordremoth was requesting of him when he turned to look back at him, meeting the gaze of those eyes. Saint had read the stories of the Human Gods, how each of them chose their followers, testing them. It seemed that he had a test to complete himself.

He thought of what this would cost. To slaughter, to murder, to kill. But it was all for a better world. It was the hard choice, the arduous way, the righteous path. All thoughts of rejecting the orders were swept away in clouds of purple mist that hovered around his open mind.

He swallowed his fears, and allowed himself to bathe in the love that now shone from Mordremoth's stare. The love that was his and his alone.

"I am ready." He whispered, his voice barely louder than a breath. Sylvari turned to look at him, warm faces and shining eyes on everyone, smiling their approval as he kneels with his sword point to the earth. "I am ready, Father."

He awoke to screams.

Screams of rage, screams of pain, screams of orders.

He looked around with his eyes alone, not daring to lift his head and show he was awake to the scum.

William held his brother weakly, his arms curled around Eric's head, tears flowing freely down his cheeks as he called his name again and again, begging him to wake up. The unconscious beast's breath was ragged, but his hair was matted with blood, soaking into his black locks.

" _He will survive"_ Father hissed in his ear, his voice wavering like that of a ghost. Saint continued to let his eyes survey, and choked back a cry of shock as he saw Silvia.

The charr bitch had her rifle drawn, pointed at Vilstress, ordering the innocent girl to stand down as she held Tink under her, hands on his small shoulders, still trying to keep him still as he thrashed and kicked at her.

Silvia shouted that this was Vilstress' last chance before she opened fire, and Saint heard Mordremoth's order boom in his mind. _"Strike now!"_

He threw his hands behind his head and curled his legs up, throwing himself to his feet with one clean, efficient move that he did not even know he was capable of.

Silvia's head turned slightly, but she did not seem to see him as a threat, returning her gaze to Vilstress, judging the distance and trying to decide on how to shoot the innocent, sweet girl who had done nothing wrong in her entire short life.

Saint reached up and drew his sword from its scabbard cleanly, without sound, and ran at Silvia, her eyes darting back at him but her body not moving fast enough to stop the attack as Saint brought down his sword hard into her shoulder.

Her metal shoulder pads dented from the blow, and she used her gun's barrel to shove him away to her side. Still reeling from waking up, from his Father's touch within his body, Saint tumbled and fell to the moss.

"What are you doing?!" She snarled, raising her rifle. Time slowed before Saint as he beheld the dark abyss of the rifle's barrel light up with a flash as she pulled the trigger, the light of death pushing his end towards his. Instinct took hold, and Saint raised his free hand in a vain attempt to block the bullet.

" _None shall harm my children again!"_ Father roared within his mind, so loud it blocked out the sound of Saint's pounding heart. Adrenaline and energy spiked through his shoulder from his chest, down his body, racing like a diving falcon to his hand. It glowed just as it had in the Dream, right as the bullet brushed his fingertips on a path towards his chest.

He screamed out of anticipation, but no pain came. No sudden sharp lance down his arm and back to his shoulder, following the path the energy had carved. The bullet turned to ash before his eyes, blowing away in the wind and off into the mist below.

Silvia hesitated, her eyes wide as she beheld Saint's glowing golden hand, then fired again whilst taking a step back. Her second shot lit up the muzzle and flew out, but her fear made her aim sloppy, and the bullet only grazed his armor just above his shoulder.

Saint scrambled to his feet, grasping his sword tighter as he moved out of the way of her third round at a speed he did not know he was capable, darting to the left with a trail of light following his body.

"What's wrong with you?!" She screamed as she fired again. He brushed his hand in a line as if drawing across a canvas, drawing a beam of sunlight directly in the bullet's path, grinning wide as it turned to ash. Just as he planned for her as well.

She cursed in her cruel tongue and steadied herself just as her paws reached the edge of the isle, raising her rifle to a position where she could aim. The barrel met Saint's eyes; parallel to his skull.

Saint's lips curled further with joy and he lifted his glowing hand as she lifted her gun, sending out a flicker of his power in the form of a shining arrow, right into the rifle's barrel, slamming into the bullet within.

With a guiding hand in his mind, he willed the sunlight into the round, burning the bullet to ash but leaving the gunpowder behind just as the trigger slammed back and the hammer pushed forward.

The blast of the powder ignited the next round in the rifle, and the entire frame exploded out, sending shrapnel back across Silvia's face. She roared in pain and dropped the useless hunk of metal and wood, but the damage was done. Saint's chance thrown open before him.

He lunged forward and grabbed her massive left horn with his glowing hand, sending his Father's holy power into her horn to keep her body locked up in pain, before throwing her back towards the center of the moss covered isle, tumbling onto her back from a toss of his skinny arms. The horn snapped away, sliced with a beam of light that came from his fingers, and he threw the useless bone off the side of the isle.

He knew his strength was not his own. This power was Father's. A gift. A blessing.

Saint savored the power now that he had a chance, walking towards her with a swagger he had never possessed before. His face was plastered with pride and joy like had never felt, even as Silvia, his leader and friend for as long as he had been doing journeys with the Priory, writhed with agony on the moss, clutching her burning fur and horn stump as if in shock, trying to dig out the hot shrapnel with her claws.

She had always been beneath him. She just never knew it. He didn't know it either, until now. Until Father.

His shadow fell over her body, her eyes darting up to stare at his silhouette in fear. "Saint." She began, ready to beg for her miserable waste of a life. But he was growing impatient now, and moved.

Like a viper striking at the speed of light, he pressed his glowing gold hand to her right cheek, thumb resting just below her eyes. He stared down at her as she froze up, breath ragged against his arm.

A clatter of metal behind her, and her hand fell back to brace against the stone. Saint's eyes darted away from hers, and laughed softly at what he saw.

A dagger was held between her claws, ready to strike at him. Her begging hadn't been anything more than a pitiful, worthless distraction. A vain attempt to keep him busy while she tried one final desperate assault.

Father laughed too. A soothing sound, steadying Saint's nerves and heart, as he felt their shared magic building up in his hand.

" _Light can be many things."_ Father whispered in his ear, placing an ethereal hand on Saint's shining shoulder. The touch sent shivers of emotions, of pure happiness, straight to his brain. It was addictive, absolutely exhilarating, to obey.

" _It can mend, it can heal."_ His hand trailed its way down, gliding along Saint's biceps. He kept his eyes forward, some unspoken rule in his mind ordering that he did not look at his Father without permission.

Silvia's own red eyes locked to something beyond Saint's head, fear and terror blossoming within them. Saint doesn't pay it any heed as Father continued his speech. _"It can reveal. It can blind."_ Another look at that revealed dagger, at the claws that gripped it so hard that the wood in the hilt whined out in protest.

A feeling consumed him, a command in his head, otherworldly and powerful. Yet despite its wordlessness, he understood what he had to do.

His yellow eyes glowed a brilliant gold with power as his Father's words continued on, echoing as Saint focused his new energy down through his arm and out his palm, against his old leader's cheek. _"Light can burn. Light can Purge!"_

Silvia screamed as smoke rose from her pelt, Saint's palm glowing bright against her. She threw her arms back, trying to pull away, but Saint tossed his sword to the ground and grasped her horn, holding it until his pure power burned through it and it fell off too. He recovered quickly, and moved his hand to her other cheek, holding her face in a vice-like grip as his magic burned through fur and flesh.

He kept going, pushing his power past bone and sinew, the light burning its way into her skull until it reached the target of Father's desire. _"Purge the parasite."_ He purred, and Saint focused his light, picturing exactly what he wanted to do to this foul creature, willing his Father's gift, His holy brilliance, into blades of energy.

His fingertips moved slowly, shifting and wriggling as the light tethered to those blades like the strings of a puppet. And just like a master puppeteer, he used his gift expertly, slicing clean incisions through the charr's brain.

He didn't question how he knew where to strike to cause the most pain, didn't concern himself with why he wanted to hear her scream and writhe before him. He just grinned, smiled in the face of her suffering, even as her eyes lost their own glow and it became clear she was gone. Only then did he send his light out as a wave, turning her brain to ash within her skull, and letting her drop to the ground like a broken toy. She died faster than she deserved.

Staring down at her, at the smoke rising from the burn on the left side of her face, Saint breathed deeply through his nose. The stench of singed fur and cooked flesh did not bother him at all, not like it might have, and he picked up his sword from where it was discarded on the rock.

" _There is more work to be done, my son."_ Father hissed into his ear, and he felt his head turned towards William across the open air between their isles, staring at him with fearful eyes. Saint smiled towards him. A smile that promised nothing but destruction.

" _More death, before I may bring life."_ Saint nodded his head in obedience, and stepped towards the edge of the island, towards the ley energy connecting them like an ethereal bridge.

He did not hesitate; his faith in Father was unwavering. His foot stepped out onto the bridge of light, and found something solid beneath.

A ripple of gold that erupted down the river of color, transforming its waves into one single sheet of light. His feet moved faster, and he broke into a run, charging towards the norn.

The feeling Father's presence being left behind made him shiver but knowing that this is what he wanted Saint to do drove his body to act, to move. It was his destiny, his alone, to cleanse the world of sin.

"Saint, stop! STOP!" William held up a hand, his legs still useless beneath him. Desperate, he reached for his brother's pistol, but Saint lunges forward at light speed off the bridge, leaving a trail of gold behind himself as his sword glows with light and slices clean through the norn's arm, leaving a bloody stump just below the elbow.

William roars in pain, his other arm grasping at the wound, his body going into shock within seconds. "Why!?" He wails, falling backwards against the rock and writhing in pain. "WHY!?"

Saint only stepped over the norn, a leafy boot on either side of the norn's thick head. He raised his sword, holding it downwards in both hands, forcing his power through the hilt and into the blade, extending the sword's reach with a shimmering projection of gold. He gave the walking plague no reason for his killings or damage he has done before bringing his sword down.

The sunlight of his Father burned through the skull, yet left the brain intact, washing around the useless norn muscle as if his power were water over a stone. Then the blade followed the light, a perfect fit through the hole seared into his face. Straight through into the rock beyond, hitting it with a satisfying thunk.

Saint panted softly, feeling the weight of his energy being used, straining his strange reservoir of magic. He never had magic in him before, or at least none that he could manifest. No spark of the elements, call of death, or shimmering illusions ever formed no matter how hard he focused. But here he was, wielding the power of the sun as elegantly as a pen to paper.

To use so much so suddenly was exhilarating, intoxicating, and exhausting all rolled into one sprouting seed of light burned into his chest. One that seemed to appear before his eyes every time he blinked.

His eyes drifted close, and he stared at that seed, watching as it tumbled and glowed in a vast void of darkness. He dragged his hands along it, to feel the power within and to reassure himself that he still had some power left. It felt like pressing his hand to a stone left in the sun, and he smiled at this sanctuary of light.

Eric sputtered and coughed loudly, dragging Saint's attention back out to the real world, where he was still smiling. Wiping the emotion from his face, he turned his head away from the ground, pulling his sword from the corpse sizzling softly beneath him, and watched the remaining norn prop himself up on his elbow, holding his head and groaning in pain.

Moving back, Saint waited for his prey to turn, standing silently behind the norn's dead and gone twin. His sword still dripped with blood.

Finally Eric's eyes wandered far enough to see Saint standing with his sword towards the floating ground beneath them, then to the body before him. His jaw went slack and he croaked out through his throat, despair festering in his voice. "William?" He went to stand, but his legs proved too weak, too uncoordinated, and so he crawled on his hands and knees to his brother.

Tears fell to the moss as he stared at the wound, lip quivering. As if Saint were no longer present, he put his head to his brother's chest and wept freely, his shoulder heaving with every sob of pain.

Saint felt something scratch at the back of his skull. A familiar itch, one that called out for his attention in what seemed to be desperation. He turned behind him, but saw nothing but other islands of brown rock floating, with their own ley energy bridges. Yet the itching continued, as if digging into his mind.

Pity for the norn began to form, bringing with it sickening pangs of regret. Saint's grip on his sword slackened, and his breathing became difficult as he looked once more to William's head. At what he had done to his friend.

Father's presence returned like a soothing wind, the scent of the Dream returning with him. The feelings and the itching were sent scurrying back, replaced with pride and confidence, letting Saint breathe easily once more, gulping in grateful breaths of fresh air as Father purred once more. _"This is what you were born to do, my son."_ Saint nodded, and looked back at Eric, who pressed his face to his brother's chest as he wept, blocking out all senses in his mourning.

So absorbed was Eric in his mourning that he hardly felt the tug of his backpack being pulled open, nor the sound of a mine being armed. He merely sobbed, wailed, and called his brother's name, begging the Spirits to bring him back.

Saint walked to the edge of the island, staring at Vilstress and Tink. The asuran was no longer moving, and yet Vilstress still held onto him, her hair covering her face enough so that all he could see of her expression was her grit teeth. He followed her arms down to where they were on Tink's body.

His eyebrows flew up. Her hands were never on Tink's shoulders.

She held a death grip around the asuran's neck, her soft hands shaking from the force, nails digging past the skin. Blood pooled underneath Tink's head, and yet she gripped harder, sinking her fingers deeper and deeper past the flesh.

Cracking bone, with arms that looked like they'd snap in the wind.

Saint stepped out onto the ley bridge and quickly walked along it, holding the detonator to the mine in his glowing hand, thumb stroking against the button trigger, strength in the feeling. Near the end of getting across it, he pressed down hard, and the small explosive erupted from within the pack, destroying all of their equipment and killing Eric.

Vilstress did not move from her position above Tink as the explosion rocked the island, threatening to disrupt the ley bridge Saint was atop before he stepped onto her rock. Even then, she still did not look up.

Saint felt Father's presence leave him and witnessed Vilstress go ridged. She was still for a few, long moments, before roaring wordlessly in fury and rage, sinking her nails deeper into Tink's strangled neck.

She tore the flesh up, and Saint felt that digging in his skull return. A hushed whisper echoed within his mind, so quiet he could not make out the words but knew it was a female's voice. Terror filled his body as he watched Vilstress glance only briefly at her mangled hands and nails, then scream and get to work.

"You hurt him!" She cried, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I won't let you hurt him! Never again! I love him!" Saint's throat went dry as he listened to her words, and he looked around for Ranfern. Maybe her guardian hound could offer some reassurance. Snap her out of her stir crazy.

All he could find as evidence to the dog's existence was claw marks that scraped along a rock near the edge. A clear sign of the sylvan hound's fate.

Bile rose up his throat as he turned back to Vilstress, back to the sight of her clawing further at the dead asuran's neck, swinging her hands like claws, tearing the flesh until finally the head rolled away from the body, completely severed and knocked away by her swinging arms.

She stopped and watched the head roll just past Saint's left leg, right off the side of the isle. Her eyes climbed up his body slowly, as if looking was an exertion, and she beheld his eyes. The fear, the disgust, the horror, all climbing out of their prison to cry out through his eyes. Pushed there by that voice, that digging in his skull.

He tried to focus on that voice instead, closing his eyes and turning away from Vilstress, trying to block out the stench of blood and smoke that clung to his clothes. A reminder of what he had done. What she had done, too.

"S-Saint." Vilstress stammered, and Saint listened to her slowly climb to her feet. Blood dripped from her hands as she held them before her body and stared down at them. A brief moment of rigidness consumed them both, and Saint could feel Father's returning presence, his reassuring touch scattering his fear and silencing that whispering voice, damning it away. He found the strength with Father to open his eyes once more, and met Vilstress' own.

" _Kill them, my child."_ Saint's sunshine turned cold within his chest, and his sword hilt became too heavy to hold. It fell out of his hands with a loud clang against the moss covered stone.

Vilstress' eyes dulled before him, her legs shaking so vigorously he feared she'd fall onto the corpse beneath her as she stared into his eyes, at his face, with a strange longing.

Slowly, her hands raised behind her head, gripping her greatsword hilt, and as he watched her unsheathe it Saint waited for the end. After all, how could he be allowed to defend himself? How could he bring himself to kill another sylvari, when his duty was to save their race? Even if it was in self defense, Saint saw no alternative.

His mind raced with answers, with second chances that seemed, but each one seemed smothered by tendrils of darkness every time they manifested, replaced by a strange calmness.

If Vilstress killed him now, it wouldn't matter. She could continue his destiny, and he could fade into the Mists. He could finally see Sieran again.

Vilstress took a step towards him, then another, the moss under her feet wet. He met her eyes and smiled warmly, reassuringly, then frowned as something cracked in her demeanor.

Her greatsword tip dragged along the ground beside her, and Saint watched with wide eyes as the hilt slid from her hands, the clanging of the blade striking stone ringing in his ears, his head.

Vilstress' eyes filled with tears as she looked down at her bloodstained hands, then back at him and shook her head. "I-I can't DO this Father!" She wailed, bringing her hands to her face, holding her eyes to stop the tears. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry! I can't kill him!"

She stood there, bawling into her hands, and Saint took a tentative step towards her when she screams, grabbing her head in her hands. "DON'T YELL AT ME!" She shrieks, then kicked with all her might into the hilt of the weapon at her feet, sending the sword spinning off the edge and into the dark mist below.

Saint stares at her, wide eyed, utterly shocked by her actions, as she held her head with her bloody hands and stumbled towards him. "Saint... help me." She choked out, tripping over her own two feet. Instincts took over, and he lunged forward, catching her and holding her tight. She didn't even try to catch herself from falling. Her hands seemed trapped to her head, and so Saint pulled her back to her feet and stared at her downcast face in awe.

She had disobeyed Father for him. She was meant to kill him, and yet she had fought tooth and nail within her own mind for him.

"They're so loud. They're yelling so loud!" She sobbed out, still holding her head. Unable to do anything and not knowing what she meant, Saint grabbed her head and wrapped his left arm around her, making sure it had no energy to threaten her, and embraced her tightly with one arm.

Inch by inch, as if it took every bit of her willpower, she brought her hands down, leaving streaks of red along her head as she wrapped her arms slowly around his waist. Breathing deeply as she pressed her face to his chest, she cried harder, shaking with fear and pain of the pounding in her head.

Saint listened to her crying and held back his own tears. He could feel no presence anymore. No itching at the back of his skull, no calming feeling of the Dream surrounding him. Everyone, it seemed, was focused on her mind. On the short sylvari he held in his arms.

She kept sobbing in pain, her small body quivering with every gasp for air through her body. Saint glanced down at her, watching the shakes course through her body. Whatever was in her mind, fighting against Father, it was taking all her strength.

Father's order still echoed in his own mind, the most recent sign of his presence, and Saint's mind raced with thoughts no longer hampered by those damned tendrils of inky blackness.

Was this Father's test of his faith? To kill this young sylvari girl? All the old gods had one follower, one loyal soldier who was written into the ancient scriptures excluding Balthazar. Was this how Father planned to choose his follower? Why couldn't Father have two followers, when he loved all his children?

But as he stared towards Vilstress's form, shaking even harder as her sobs had reached a louder pitch, he knew he couldn't listen to Mordremoth. Not like this. He couldn't. He wouldn't.

A single touch was all it took. Like the touch of a feather, Father helped him to understand. His thoughts of resistance washed away, remaking his mind into a blank canvas once more with only the order left. There was nothing more to empower that final order, nothing to explain everything. But Saint had reassurance that everything would be okay.

Vilstress did not flinch when the black dagger fell. He did not let her. The last of his Father's magic was used up to protect his daughter. It rushed through the hole he opened into her back with the blade, burning away her pain in a healing swath of loving energy before it cut sliced through her brain stem swiftly and efficiently.

He listened to her last breath leave past her lips against his chest and took in a deep one of his own.

This was for the best.

Saint ended her pain swiftly, and allowed her to travel on to the Mists unopposed. She was too weak to bear the burden, the terrible destiny that he had been gifted by Father.

Her body went limp, but he did not allow her the disgrace of falling as those of the lesser races had.

His magic performed one last miracle, even though Saint felt as though there was not a single spark left in his body. Somehow he found just enough with sheer willpower, as if he had scratched the flakes of magic out of his body and smashed them together.

The light filling her entire body flowed through her veins before forcing its way out through her pores. As it left, her green bark turned gray, and she fell to the ground without a sound, disappearing into a puff of ash and dust. Free to the Mists.

Saint watched with a soft, relaxed smile as a breeze carried the innocent girl's soul eastward, out of this horrible world, and sighed at the relief it gave him. His smile wide as the feeling of his Father returned, swirling around him, whisking away his doubts upon a spring breeze. _"Well done, my golden son."_ He hummed, and Saint walked towards the edge of the isle, bending down to retrieve his sword.

The drilling in the back of his skull, which had not appeared for so long, suddenly came back in force, punching its way past the barrier his Father had setup without his knowledge. He screamed in pain at the feeling of the wall shattering, then went cold as a woman's voice echoed in his mind. A voice he hadn't heard since the day he was born.

"What have you DONE?!" The Pale Tree wailed, her warm hands feeling like a brand against his cheeks.

Saint balked at the sight of his Mother before him. Her yellow eyes filled with sorrow and rage he had never seen before in her calm and wise gaze.

Emotions flooded his head like a

All the emotions that Mordremoth had held back. Every horror, every regret, every tear. Every feeling that he should have felt.

It all hit him like tidal wave, drowning all his senses. Nothing could hold back the bile as it rose this time, and his hard lunch felt awful coming back up.

"How could you, child?" Mother whispered, but Saint could give no answer. He couldn't think, couldn't feel the stone beneath him, couldn't breathe right. "She loved you! Loved you and cherished you and begged to be with you, every night, to every god!"

He didn't want to hear this now. He couldn't bear the guilt, grasping his heart in its cold and unforgiving talons. He had killed her, and for what? Where was Mordremoth now?

A close by roar was his answer. Both his and the Pale tree's eyes looked off the side of the isle, towards the long snake-like thing writhing in the mist below. "He is awake." Mother gasped, a hand flying to her mouth, just before the snake disappeared below the blue fog. "Child, you must run."

He couldn't. His legs felt weak, his body numb. His fault, it was all his fault that this thing had awoken, this strange beast below their feet. He had awoken it.

"This isn't your fault!" Mother hissed, running over to him and pulling him up by his arm. He stumbled and lean against her like a drunk, but she shoved him to get him to focus. Whether she could read his mind in this moment of danger, or his face had given him away, he didn't care. "You must run! Use the gift he gave you and run!"

He tried. By all the gods, the spirits, he tried. He dug deep, grasping that seed of light planted in his body by the beast below his feet, but it was cold and offered no help. Not even scraps left. He was running on empty, and he told Mother such.

"You have to try!" She shoved him again, past Tink's headless form on the ground, back towards the jungle. "You must run and warn them!" A ley bridge, glowing a soft purple of the Dream, connected the isle to the jungle path.

Saint reached into himself with his own avatar, grasped the seed tightly and begging it for something as he ran towards the bridge. Faint light glowed beneath his feet. It was unsteady, like running atop snow, but it was enough, and he flew across the bridge.

His magic waned halfway across. The bridge became brittle, a terrible mix of purple and gold swirling beneath his boots. His foot fell out from under him and he leapt, a cry of terror erupting from his mouth as he reached out with both hands.

His hands grasped the dirt, fingers sinking down into mud and tugging at grass tufts. He kicked and pounded against the soil beneath the cliff until it gave way. Footholds.

He pulled himself up onto his stomach, mud covering his armor, his face. Out, he had to get out. He was going to get out.

" _Look out!"_ Mother screamed in his mind.

Saint's head whipped around as vines erupted from the mist below him and wrapped around his ankles. He managed to kick only once as they wrapped around tight and twisted.

Searing pain lanced up his leg, and a bloodcurdling scream echoed through the jungle.

His body shook as he tried to pull himself up, fingers grasping into the mud, desperate to escape.

A single tug yanked him away from the cliff face, down into the awaiting mouth of Mordremoth. The jaws of the serpent clamped down as soon as the vine-tongues around his legs let go, sending him into a spinning fall down into darkness.

But he did not die.

Flying in a world of darkness, Saint spun within the body of the snake, tumbling and falling deeper into the belly of the beast. He heard Mother call for him before the light of the outside disappeared, and he was lost in a new world of bright colors and vibrant lights. Bioluminescence in the beast.

It stank of the Dream when he finally stopped, barking in pain as he held his legs before him. Somehow, this twisted creation had managed to turn the Dream's beautiful, homely smell into something awful to his nostrils.

That spring breeze, that reassuring presence. It hit harder than he could have anticipated, and without that woman outside to interfere he had nothing he could have done to stop it even if he'd wanted to.

"My poor child." Father's voice echoed all around him, as if it came from every wall, bouncing off each other and filling his head, forcing him to relax as vines tickled at his body, climbing and slithering over him towards his head. "You were meant to be perfect."

He remembered now. He is Father's child. Born to be perfect, to lead his race to rule the others. "I'm sorry Father." He whispered without a drop of fear. He had nothing to fear in Father.

So relaxed, so lost in bliss, so safe. Saint barely gasped when a vine wrapped around his neck and hoisted him off the ground. He did not bother resisting as two more vines pressed against his temples, a third against the back of his skull, rubbing where that cruel and evil drilling had been minutes ago.

"You still can be." Father reassured, the vine tips gliding back and forth, petting his son. "You just need Mordremoth to send you down the right path." Those vines pressed harder, crushing his head between them, cutting into his skin. "To fix you."

Saint grunted in pain as something split, but then they passed through his skull, and into his mind. He could feel Father's touch directly, every cold slither sending shivers down his spine as his brain was exposed to the open air. Pleasure like he had never felt, not even with Sieran, ran through his nerves like fireworks.

"My shining example for all to see." Father purred before he went to work, scouring Saint's memories and split them up. Every cruelty, every injustice, every slight the sylvari male had ever experienced was separated from every joy, every blissful feeling, every loving moment. "My vision of perfection."

Despite knowing Father loved him.

Saint's blood went cold.

 _You have no control._

A voice, dark and foreboding, echoed in his heart as his mind was ripped asunder.

Saint sat, a prisoner in his own mind, and watched as Father put every bad thing back, stuffing his brain with pain and sorrow and despair. If a sylvari was the cause, the memory was turned to ash with a single blast of light. Sunlight, just like the magic he was given by Father.

Confused and worried for himself, his heart stopped as he watched Father turn his attention to the good memories. As if he were putting out candles, he pinched them between his vines, smothering them until they vanished into nothing.

The first time he killed, the first time he saved someone, the first time he helped someone, all choked before his eyes. Saint opened his mouth within his own mind to scream, but something was blocking the sound. He reached up, and felt a vine around his neck, choking off his air flow, leaving him unable to breathe.

Half conscious, kicking and writhing in the real world deep within Father's stomach, Saint could do nothing but sit and watch as everything was wiped away. His first soulbound weapon, his first time eating candy, his first sylvari friends. Blown away on a spring breeze that he tried so hard to make vanish with his own thoughts. Nothing.

 _You have no control._

Saint nodded in agreement.

His eyes welled up with tears and he mouthed for Father to stop, to forgive him, to leave him alone.

He did not.

Vision became fuzzy as he began to lose too much oxygen.

His vines coiled around the Priory itself, around his first mission and every good memory he had with the expeditions. The discoveries, the triumphs, the puzzles. The memories seemed stronger, fresher, requiring more effort to be crushed. But Father would not be denied.

Desperate, Saint turned to his other memories and paled. He couldn't lose them. He wouldn't. He struggled against his vines further, grasping the vine around his neck hard enough to pull it away. Taking a deep breath of air, he croaked out a weak, "No!" before the vine clasped back around his neck, once again keeping him silent.

His memories of the other races. All that were left.

Father paused, holding a memory of Saint's first interaction with a skritt in his grasp. He turned to the sylvari and seemed lost in thought, then grinned with a maliciousness Saint couldn't even fathom. "As you wish, my son." He bowed low, and then his vines stabbed into every memory left, penetrating the shields with the sounds of nails on chalkboard.

Saint's head exploded with pain as he saw every memory twisted and malformed before his teary eyes. Happiness gave way to despair and hatred as friends turned their backs on him, peoples shunned him, and the entire world seemed to rage against him, working in tandem to crush his dreams.

 _You have no control._

He never had control.

Father left two memories for last, and he dragged them before Saint, who wept fresh tears of sorrow as he beheld what was within. Sieran and Vilstress, both staring towards him with eyes of wonder and affection, both far better than he ever deserved.

Both such Alien feelings, when all you've known is hatred from everyone.

The vines slid into the memories like daggers, then wriggled towards the females like worms. They stabbed into the girl's heads, then withdrew, and the love in their eyes vanished, replaced with bitter disgust in one, and raging jealousy in the other.

Slowly, he remembered.

And wished he could forget.

He had asked her to a dance that day. A celebration in Lion's Arch, and she had rejected him as if he were a puppy at the base of a great wurm wishing to be held up. How could she break his heart like that? How could she not see that he loved her?

Their second encounter, and all he had talked about was Sieran. He had deserved the broken nose, deserved the hatred on their first expedition together, her first expedition ever. But she had died because she attacked him on that expedition. She had grabbed him, and he defended himself. For he had a duty. But she deserved what she got.

 _You have no control._

He didn't want control. Not after all he has done.

Saint cried harder within his mind and within the serpent's belly, even as his vision began to fade from oxygen deprivation once more. Father sat beside him, and he felt his warm embrace around his body. Desperate to be loved, desperate to be wanted after a life of rejection and pain, he scooted closer, needing to feel more of that warmth.

"My poor, poor Saint." Father whispered as he rubbed his son's back with a blood soaked vine. Saint could not remember the name he was born with through the blood filling his head, beginning to pull beneath him.

Father nodded slowly, reading his mind. "That is your name now. My Saint. My Savior. My hero."

Consciousness slipped away slowly, but Saint did not struggle. There was no point anymore. He relaxed in Father's grip, knowing he was safe, protected with his Father from the cruelties outside.

His neck twisted suddenly.

His eyelids were heavy as he awoke in a pool of yellow, sticky liquid, above a world of green and brown, shielded by the sight of the Grove. A deep chuckle rumbling in his head and a female figure standing below him with a golden blade, his golden blade, held tightly in her hand, ready to set him free back into the world.

Back into a world of cruelty and pain. Back into a world that had turned its back on him. Back into the world of Tyria.

To protect the jungle he loved with every fiber of his being.

He sighed within the pool, bubbles rising from his mouth. His holy destiny as Father's Saint.

Began today.

 **This is the voice in my head who supported me through my tween years. He is the one who respects Lorcan and Roland and Cairn, all those who follow orders, who kill and destroy not because they want to but because it is the only thing they know. The soldiers, the followers, the cultists, the lost, the damned, the distraught.**

 **He is the one who tells me that the only opinions that matter are my own. That all who like me are worthy and all who don't like me are not worth the dirt on my shoes. He makes me love myself by showing the flaws in everyone and everything, and tells me that it's okay to be me, as long as I am proud of me.**

 **I hope you enjoyed his story. He doesn't care what you think... Bitch.**


End file.
